vol. 167, no.

6 the american naturalist june 2006

Pereskia and the Origin of the Cactus Life-Form
Erika J. Edwards
*
and Michael J. Donoghue

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Peabody

Museum of Natural History, Yale University, P.O. Box 208105,
New Haven, Connecticut 06511
Submitted September 2, 2005; Accepted February 21, 2006;
Electronically published April 28, 2006
abstract: The cactus life-form is cited as an example of a tight
relationship between organism form and function: a succulent, long-
lived, photosynthetic stem allows cacti to survive long periods of
drought while maintaining a positive tissue water status. Pereskia
(Cactaceae) comprises 17 species of leafy shrubs and trees that are
thought to represent the original cactus condition. Recent phylo-
genetic work has shown that there are two separate clades of Pereskia
species, which are basal and paraphyletic with respect to the rest of
the cacti. We selected seven Pereskia species, representing both clades,
and characterized their water relations by measuring a suite of phys-
iological traits in wild populations. Additionally, we estimated basic
climate parameters from collection localities for all 17 Pereskia spe-
cies. Extant Pereskia species exhibit ecological water use patterns that
are very similar to those of the leaess, stem-succulent cacti. Ancestral
trait reconstruction for the physiological and environmental data
provides a preliminary assessment of the ecology and water relations
of the earliest cacti and suggests that several key elements of the
cactus ecological niche were established before the evolution of the
cactus life-form. We interpret these ecological traits as potentially
important drivers of evolutionary innovation in the cacti.
Keywords: key innovation, Pereskia, Cactaceae, ancestral trait recon-
struction, water relations, ecological niche, character evolution.
The cactus life-form is often heralded as a striking example
of adaptive evolution in plants. Most cacti have the ability
to survive extended periods of extreme drought, which has
allowed the lineage to radiate extensively throughout the
New Worlds arid and semiarid ecosystems (Gibson and
Nobel 1986; Nobel 1988; Anderson 2001). Their drought
* Present address: Geography Department, University of California, Institute
for Computational Earth System Science 3060, Santa Barbara, California
93106; e-mail: eedwards@icess.ucsb.edu.

E-mail: michael.donoghue@yale.edu.
Am. Nat. 2006. Vol. 167, pp. 777793. 2006 by The University of Chicago.
0003-0147/2006/16706-41282$15.00. All rights reserved.
survival is conferred by a suite of anatomical and physi-
ological specializations. All investigated cacti exhibit ex-
tensive, shallow rooting systems, which allow for the rapid
absorption of water from the top layer of soil after brief
desert rains. Most cacti possess enlarged pith and stem
cortical layers, which contain large mucilaginous cells that
aid in long-term water storage. Additionally, most cacti
exhibit crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) photosyn-
thesis, a specialized pathway that temporally separates
atmospheric CO
2
uptake from photosynthetic light reac-
tions, allowing stomata to open during nighttime when
the transpirational water loss is reduced (Kluge and Ting
1978). Finally, most cacti are functionally leaess and have
transferred their primary photosynthetic activities to their
long-lived, specialized stem cortical tissue layer.
The elimination of leaves is thought to be among their
most important adaptations to drought: leaves are tem-
porary structures with large surface areas that allow for
excessive water loss to the atmosphere. Creating a long-
lived photosynthetic tissue system in the stem minimizes
the exposure of hydrated tissue to the atmosphere while
at the same time extending the potential lifetime carbon
assimilation of photosynthetic cells, which allows them to
be more conservative about opening their stomata. Taken
together, these traits promote a highly successful ecolog-
ical water use strategy: cacti live in environments char-
acterized by extreme drought but maintain positive tissue
water status by being exceptionally good at acquiring and
storing water and simultaneously exhibiting high photo-
synthetic water use efciency (Nobel 1977, 1988; Barci-
kowski and Nobel 1984; Gibson and Nobel 1986).
Pereskia (Cactaceae) consists of 17 species of leafy shrubs
and trees that have long been considered the best living
representation of the ancestral cactus (g. 1). Several
phylogenetic studies have questioned the monophyly of
Pereskia, though they are all limited by taxon sampling
and/or resolution (Wallace 1995; Nyffeler 2002; Butter-
worth and Wallace 2005). A new phylogenetic hypothesis
of basal cactus relationships based on molecular data re-
solves Pereskia as a paraphyletic assemblage of species
at the base of the cacti and conrms that their leafy habit
and nonsucculent stems were not secondarily derived (Ed-
wards et al. 2005). Further, the Pereskia species united with
Figure 1: Pereskia growth form and morphology. Pereskia species range from woody scramblers and shrubs to taller trees, reaching over 20 m in height in Pereskia lychnidiora. A, The shrub
Pereskia portulacifolia. B, The tree Pereskia guamacho. C, Leafy stem of Pereskia sacharosa, showing the use of the areole short-shoot system to produce leaves as well as spines. D, Succulent leaves
subtending the spiny cactus areole during new stem growth in Pereskia weberiana.
Origin of the Cactus Life-Form 779
Figure 2: Basic parameters of plant water relations. Water ux through
the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum is generally modeled after Ohms
law, where the driving force behind water movement is the difference
between soil and atmospheric water potentials (DW). The rate of water
ux is a function of DW and the hydraulic conductivity of the pathway.
Plant hydraulic conductivity (K
h
) is often compartmentalized into root,
stem, leaf (K
lamina
), and leaf boundary layer components, each of which
may vary independently. To compare K
h
of xylem (the primary plant
water-conducting tissue) across plant species, researchers usually nor-
malize stem K
h
by either the amount of conductive tissue measured
(sapwood cross-sectional area, K
sp
) or the amount of leaf area that the
measured conductive tissue is supplying (one-sided leaf surface area, K
L
).
K
sp
is an intrinsic value of the wood, largely governed by vessel length,
diameter, and density, while K
L
reects both K
sp
and Huber value (HV),
which is the sapwood/leaf area ratio. A high HV means that plants are
investing in large amounts of wood per leaf, which is a relatively expensive
(in terms of both carbon and energy costs) allocation pattern.
cactoid, opuntioid, and Maihuenia lineages (referred to as
the core cacti) have stem stomata and exhibit delayed
bark formation, two traits that are critical in the devel-
opment of the stem as a long-lived photosynthetic organ
(Edwards et al. 2005). This substantiates the usefulness of
Pereskia species for inferring early events in the transition
to the cactus life-form and allows us to address several
key questions regarding the evolution of the specialized
cactus water use strategy. How did the cacti regulate their
water use before the evolution of efcient water storage
tissue systems and stem-based photosynthesis? What sorts
of environments did they live in, and what levels of
drought could they tolerate? Are there particular aspects
of their ancestral water relations that may have promoted
the evolution of the specialized cactus life-form?
Background and Objectives
In spite of the long-standing interpretation of Pereskia as
a model of the ancestral cactus, there has been little work
done to characterize basic Pereskia ecology and physiology.
Historically, Pereskia has been described as inhabiting a
range of dry tropical forest areas but not subject to or
surviving severe water stress. They are generally considered
to be drought-deciduous, nonsucculent woody plants, with
primarily C3 photosynthesis and weak CAM-cycling abil-
ities (Rayder and Ting 1981; Gibson and Nobel 1986;
Leuenberger 1986; Nobel and Hartsock 1986, 1987; Mau-
seth and Landrum 1997; Mauseth 1999; Martin and Wal-
lace 2000). CAM cycling refers to a variant of CAM pho-
tosynthesis wherein the plant opens stomata by day and
closes them at night but uses the CAM metabolic pathway
to reassimilate internally respired CO
2
(Kluge and Ting
1978). Investigations of photosynthetic pathway variation
have primarily utilized greenhouse-grown plants, and eld
studies of wild Pereskia populations have been limited (but
see Diaz 1984; Diaz and Medina 1984; Luttge et al. 1989).
Even less is known regarding how Pereskia species reg-
ulate their water use. General characteristics of the plant
water transport pathway and the processes involved in
regulating plant water loss are illustrated and explained in
gure 2 (see table 1 for terminology abbreviations and
denitions). Plants living in extremely water-limited en-
vironments exhibit several water use strategies that differ
in phenology, leaf life span, rooting depth, minimum tol-
erated tissue water decits (pminimum tissue water po-
tential, W
min
), maximum transpiration rates, and growth
form.
Edwards and Diaz (2006) recently investigated the eco-
physiology of Pereskia guamacho in northwestern Vene-
zuela and found that the water relations of P. guamacho
are strikingly different from those of co-occurring woody,
leafy plants. Pereskia guamacho maintained high leaf water
potentials year-round because of a high leaf-specic xylem
conductivity (K
L
) conferred by a large wood-to-leaf carbon
allocation pattern (HV). Stomatal behavior of P. guamacho
was conservative and afforded a high photosynthetic water
use efciency. Additionally, P. guamacho exhibited complex
and unpredictable leaf phenological patterns; different
populations were asynchronous with one another as well
as with their respective plant communities. Rather than
shedding its leaves in response to drought, one population
of P. guamacho performed drought-induced CAM pho-
780 The American Naturalist
Table 1: List of abbreviations used in text
Abbreviation Denition Unit
K
sp
Sapwood-specic xylem hydraulic conductivity kg m
1
s
1
MPa
1
K
L
Leaf-specic xylem hydraulic conductivity 10
4
kg m
1
s
1
MPa
1
HV Huber value 10
4
m
2
m
2
SPI Stomatal pore index 10
2
mm
2
mm
2
SLA Specic leaf area m
2
kg
1
W
min
Minimum bulk leaf water potential MPa
d
13
C Leaf carbon isotope discrimination ratio
tosynthesis, while a second retarded leaf expansion and
kept stomata closed day and night. Edwards and Diaz
(2006) speculated that P. guamacho is not strictly drought
deciduous and may instead perform drought-induced
CAM photosynthesis as a means of lengthening leaf life
span. They concluded that in many ways, the water use
strategy of P. guamacho is similar to that of the leaess,
stem-succulent cacti: it too maintains a positive tissue wa-
ter status while surviving in water-limited environments,
it exhibits water storage (in leaves), and its stomatal be-
havior is conservative and tightly regulates water loss. To
put it simply, P. guamacho may not look like a cactus, but
it behaves like one.
If P. guamacho is representative of all Pereskia species,
this suggests that the morphological and anatomical spe-
cializations exhibited by the core cacti are not directly
responsible for their ecological water use strategy per se;
rather, key elements of this strategy were more or less
established in the Cactaceae before the evolution of stem
succulence and the evolutionary loss of functional leaves.
Here we characterize the physiological ecology of other
Pereskia species, focusing especially on traits pertaining to
water use, and we use this information to infer the ecology
and water relations of the rst cacti. We extend the sam-
pling of Pereskia ecophysiology to include six additional
species, representing both major Pereskia clades. In order
to more accurately characterize the climate regimes of ex-
tant Pereskia, we gathered climate data from specimen col-
lection localities for all Pereskia species. We then recon-
structed both ecophysiological and climatic variables at
two specic nodes in the basal cactus phylogeny to help
infer the ecological water use strategy of ancestral Pereskia,
and we used these reconstructions to construct a prelim-
inary hypothesis of the ecological and physiological con-
ditions that preceded the evolution of the typical cactus
life-form.
Methods
Ecophysiological and Anatomical Data
To characterize the water relations of Pereskia species, we
focused on a suite of traits relating to plant hydraulics and
water use. For each of the seven species, we measured
sapwood (K
sp
, kg m
1
s
1
MPa
1
) and leaf-specic xylem
hydraulic conductivity (K
L
, kg m
1
s
1
MPa
1
), Huber
value (HV), minimum leaf water potential (W
min
, MPa),
and daily patterns of stomatal conductance (g
s
, mmol m
2
s
1
). All eld measurements were made in natural pop-
ulations during the growing (rainy) season on healthy ma-
ture plants growing in full sun, using methods identical
to those described by Edwards and Diaz (2006). In Pe-
reskia, it proved difcult to measure K
lamina
directly because
of succulence and the lack of a petiole in many species.
However, Sack et al. (2003) demonstrated a highly sig-
nicant correlation between stomatal pore index (SPI;
guard cell density [mm
2
mm
2
]) and
2
length #stomatal
leaf laminar conductance (K
lamina
) across a diverse collec-
tion of species, so we instead calculated the SPI of three
eld-grown leaves from multiple individuals from each
species, and we here use SPI as a proxy for K
lamina
.
Stable carbon isotope ratios of leaf tissue are routinely
used as a time-integrated measure of photosynthetic water
use efciency for C3 plants, with lower levels of
13
C dis-
crimination indicative of higher water use efciency (Far-
quhar et al. 1982). They are also used to differentiate be-
tween photosynthetic pathways because the enzymes used
in the rst carboxylation step of atmospheric CO
2
differ
strongly in their discrimination of
13
C (Kluge and Ting
1978). Multiple leaves from each individual ( in- n p3
dividuals for each species) were dried, bulk ground with
mortar and pestle, and subsampled. Using a Finnigan MAT
delta E isotope ratio mass spectrometer,
13
C/
12
C ratios were
determined on CO
2
collected from the samples after com-
bustion. Numbers here are expressed relative to the PDB
standard using the equation
13 12
C/ C
sample 13
d C p1,000 1 .
13 12 ( )
C/ C
standard
We also estimated specic leaf area (SLA, m
2
kg
1
), cal-
culating bulk leaf surface area and dry weight of multiple
leaves for eight individuals of each species. SLA is a func-
tion of leaf water content, leaf thickness, and leaf density
and has been shown to correlate negatively with leaf life
Origin of the Cactus Life-Form 781
span and nutrient use efciency and positively with max-
imum photosynthetic rate (Reich et al. 1992; Ackerly and
Reich 1999). It is often used as a proxy for carbon in-
vestment per leaf and as a good predictor of ecological
growth strategy (Westoby et al. 2002).
Climate Data
To create a more accurate picture of current Pereskia ecology,
we collated all specimen collection location information in
Leuenberger (1986) and fromthe collections of the Missouri
Botanical Garden (St. Louis, MO) that are available online.
We then translated the descriptive location data into
latitude/longitude coordinates using the free Web-based
tool BioGeomancer (http://www.biogeomancer.org). We
used DIVA-GIS (http://diva-gis.org/) to map these points
and extract climate information for each species distribu-
tion. DIVA-GIS uses the WorldClim global climate data set,
available at http://www.worldclim.org. We calculated mean
and standard error of each climate variable for each species
and used these as tip values in our phylogenetic climate
reconstructions.
Ancestral Trait and Climate Reconstruction
Figure 3 depicts the basal cactus phylogeny described by
Edwards et al. (2005). The current lack of trait data from
cactus outgroups as well as appropriate members of the
core cacti imposes important limitations on how con-
dently we can infer the character states of our particular
physiological traits for the basal nodes in Cactaceae. In
some instances, traits that are highly relevant to Pereskia
water use are irrelevant to or even impossible to measure
in the core cacti; leaf-related traits, such as SLA or K
lamina
,
for example, cannot be measured in a plant with no func-
tional leaves. For this reason we chose to reconstruct the
basal nodes of the two Pereskia lineages separately, and we
use these values to infer the ecological setting and water
relations of ancestral Pereskia (g. 3, nodes A and B). Our
fundamental assumption is that a general ecological water
use strategy that is shared by both Pereskia clades and the
core cacti is likely to be ancestral for Cactaceae. This would
present a working hypothesis, to be tested as we gather
more physiological data from portulacaceous outgroups
and appropriate core cacti, and as basal Cactoideae and
Opuntioideae phylogenetic relationships become better
resolved.
We used COMPARE 4.6 (Martins 2004) to explore dif-
ferent methods of ancestral trait reconstruction for con-
tinuous characters. COMPARE employs a generalized least
squares model of ancestral state estimation (Martins and
Hansen 1997), which in its simplest form is analogous to
the maximum likelihood reconstruction method of Schlu-
ter et al. (1997). Branch lengths, intraspecic trait varia-
tion, and assumptions regarding models of character evo-
lution can all have signicant consequences in estimating
ancestral values (Felsenstein 1985; Donoghue and Ackerly
1996; Martins and Hansen 1997; Cunningham et al. 1998;
Butler and King 2004). To explore the sensitivity of our
reconstructions to each of these variables, we generated
sets of 500 trees with randomized branch lengths (using
the generate trees function in COMPARE 4.6) and ran
multiple analyses across all trees, using different models
of phenotypic trait evolution. In all analyses, we included
standard errors of our trait means as estimates of intra-
specic trait variation. We employed two primary evolu-
tionary models: a Brownian motion (BM) model of trait
evolution, which corresponds to Schluter et al.s (1997)
maximum likelihood method and assumes that traits
evolve by drift; and a simple Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU)
model with one evolutionary optimum, which may be
more appropriate for traits evolving under stabilizing se-
lection (Hansen 1997). Butler and King (2004) present a
compelling argument for exploring more complex OU
models with multiple evolutionary optima; however, our
limited taxon sampling ( taxa per tree) prevents n p39
us from estimating such parameter-rich models with any
condence. We did explore effects of selection strength on
ancestral reconstruction, however, by employing four dif-
ferent values for a (0.5, 1.0, 5.0, and 10.0). For each of
the Pereskia clades (separately), we ran BM and OUmodels
across 500 trees with randomized branch lengths to re-
construct seven physiological traits and eight climate var-
iables for nodes A and B (g. 3). For the physiological
traits, we used trees that consisted of only the seven focal
Pereskia species (two trees, one of four and one of three
species), and for the climate reconstructions, we used trees
that included all 17 Pereskia species (two trees, one of eight
and one of nine species).
Using environmental parameters of extant species to
infer ancestral climates is a relatively novel endeavor (Gra-
ham et al. 2004; Hardy and Linder 2005), and the con-
ceptual basis of this approach has not yet been fully de-
veloped. For example, most environmental parameters are
continuous variables, such as mean annual precipitation,
and a given species distribution will encompass a range
of values for this variable. Graham et al. (2004) and Hardy
and Linder (2005) reconstructed minimum and maximum
values for species independently and used these to delimit
ancestral niche envelopes. This may be overly conser-
vative because the density curves of sampled environ-
mental parameters should be similar to those of other
continuous organismal traits (e.g., with appropriate sam-
ple size, they are normally distributed). Such is the case
for many of our climate variable distributions (see g. 4).
Because we are most interested in the probable climates
782 The American Naturalist
Figure 3: Basal cactus phylogeny, adapted from Edwards et al. (2005). Phylogram generated from a maximum likelihood search using a concatenated
ve-gene-region data set of 6,450 characters. Pereskia is paraphyletic, with nine Pereskia species united with the core cacti in the caulocactus clade.
Species chosen for ecophysiological eld studies are shown in boldface capital letters. We reconstructed ancestral values of nodes A and B for seven
physiological traits, using measured values from the seven focal Pereskia species. For reconstructed climate estimates of nodes A and B, we used
data from all 17 Pereskia species.
at nodes A and B, as opposed to the full range of potential
climates, we have used means and standard errors for the
extant species in our reconstructions.
Results
Ecological Physiology of Extant Pereskia Species
Means and standard errors of seven ecophysiological traits
for the focal Pereskia species are reported in table 2, to-
gether with values culled from the literature to provide
context for the Pereskia values. When possible, studies
from tropical dry forest plant communities were used for
comparison; unfortunately, this was not possible for SPI
because this trait has not yet been reported from species
living in these systems. Also, while there are many studies
that measure xylem hydraulic properties, the methods used
to do this are not standardized, making comparisons across
studies difcult. For this reason, the range of values we
present for K
sp
, K
L
, and HV are from one study in a Costa
Rican dry forest (Brodribb et al. 2002) whose methods
were the same as those used here.
Despite large morphological differences between the
seven focal Pereskia species (g. 1), their ecophysiological
characteristics are generally quite similar, and all species
exhibit the same general water use pattern described for
Pereskia guamacho by Edwards and Diaz (2006). Values of
K
L
and HV are high, allowing for an efcient water supply
system to transpiring leaves (this is taken to the extreme
in Pereskia portulacifolia, with K
L
and HV values among
the highest reported for any woody broad-leaved plant).
The value for SPI, our proxy for K
lamina
, is among the lowest
recorded in the literature. A coupling of high K
L
and low
K
lamina
implies that whole-plant water use is being regulated
primarily at the leaf level.
Pereskia minimum leaf water potentials are remarkably
high for woody plants of semiarid tropical environments.
The d
13
C values indicate very high photosynthetic water
use efciencies, with extremely high values in Pereskia diaz-
romeroana and Pereskia sacharosa. In a survey of CAM
plants that exhibit plasticity in the proportion of atmo-
spheric carbon xed during the day or night, Winter and
Holtum (2002) found a strong linear relationship between
tissue d
13
C and the percentage of carbon uptake occurring
at night, with d
13
C values of 21 and 22 corre-
sponding to approximately 20% nocturnal carbon uptake.
This suggests that P. diaz-romeroana and P. sacharosa, like
P. guamacho (Edwards and Diaz 2006), are using the CAM
photosynthetic pathway to some degree. Values for SLA
Figure 4: Box plots of two environmental parameters of extant Pereskia species. Values inside boxes represent 75% of data points, and tails include 95% of data points; line inside box is median.
The closer the median line is to the center of the box, the more normally distributed are the data. Numbers next to species names are the total number of collection localities representing that
species. Species names in boldface were sampled for ecophysiological trait characterization; the selected species encompass the majority of climate variation experienced across all Pereskia species.
A, Mean annual precipitation; B, mean annual temperature. Most climate regimes correspond to the tropical dry or very dry forest Holdridge life zone (Holdridge 1967).
Table 2: Values of ecophysiological traits measured for seven Pereskia species and reconstructed nodes A and B
Species
Study site
location
Latitude and
longitude
K
sp
(n p 8
branches)
a
K
L
(n p 8
branches)
a
HV (n p 8
branches)
SPI
(n p 3 leaves)
SLA
(n p 8 trees)
W
min
(n p 5 trees)
13
C
(n p 3 trees)
Pereskia diaz-romeroana Bolivia 18.10113S,
64.45551W
1.69
AB
.30 7.81
BC
.97 5.54
B
1.18 3.38
BC
.21 13.80
B
.39 .88
AB
.09 21.39
A
.42
Pereskia guamacho Venezuela 11.28126N,
69.69042W
1.03
B
.26 5.91
BC
1.44 5.79
B
.66 2.74
C
.26 15.09
B
1.27 1.00
A
.04 25.83
B
.31
Pereskia marcanoi Dominican
Republic
19.0895N,
71.68403W
2.06
AB
.20 11.16
B
1.75 5.62
B
.91 5.18
AB
.53 24.80
A
2.07 .60
C
.05 26.17
B
.58
Pereskia portulacifolia Dominican
Republic
18.42655N,
71.76983W
2.69
ABC
.27 27.62
A
2.37 10.82
A
1.54 6.02
A
.89 11.45
B
.84 .84
AB
.04 24.3
BC
.33
Pereskia quisqueyana Dominican
Republic
18.36913N,
68.84258W
1.76
AB
.14 3.60
C
.54 2.20
B
.56 3.98
ABC
.30 19.36
A
2.43 .71
BC
.03 25.43
B
.58
Pereskia sacharosa Bolivia 18.27388S,
64.15802W
2.01
AB
.25 8.85
BC
1.44 4.65
B
.63 3.45
BC
.02 13.58
B
1.90 .84
AB
.04 22.54
AC
.28
Pereskia weberiana Bolivia 16.54096S,
67.39115W
1.91
AB
.97 4.56
BC
2.60 1.96
B
.12 3.36
BC
.04 13.29
B
.72 .73
BC
.03 26.12
B
.72
Reconstructed ancestral
values:
Node A 1.76 .001 8.89 . 110 5.35 .003 4.06 .003 16.16 .005 .82 .000 25.41 .000
Node B 1.87 .000 7.54 .002 3.33 .005 3.40 .000 13.69 .000 0.82 .000 22.99 .002
Comparable values for
other broad-leaved C3
angiosperms 13.8 .484.26 .541.7 320 4.826.8 1.0 to 5.0 22 to 30
Sources of comparable
values Brodribb et al.
2002
Brodribb et al.
2002
Brodribb et al.
2002
Sack et al.
2003
Eamus and
Prior 2001;
Vendramini et
al. 2002
Sobrado 1986;
Eamus and
Prior 2001;
Brodribb et
al. 2002; E.
Edwards,
unpublished
data
Mooney et al.
1989; Smith et
al. 1997;
Eamus and
Prior 2001
Note: Values are presented as . For extant species, values with different letters are signicantly different from one another (all pairs Tukey-Hamer test, ). For denitions of abbreviations, mean SE P ! .05
see table 1.
a
With the exception of P. weberiana, where branches. n p2
Origin of the Cactus Life-Form 785
Figure 5: Patterns of stomatal conductance in Pereskia. A, Pereskia mar-
canoi, with co-occurring Guaiacum ofcinale as a control. Stomata of P.
marcanoi minimally opened for only a brief period in the morning until
there was a substantial rainstorm, after which stomata remained open
for most of the day. Maximum g
s
was quite low in comparison to that
of co-occurring trees. Breaks in the curve represent periods where no
measurements were made. B, Observed stomatal behavior in Pereskia
diaz-romeroana was similar to that of P. marcanoi, with a more substantial
stomatal response to rainfall events than in its woody co-occurring coun-
terparts, here represented by Capparis speciosa. C, Pereskia weberiana,
showing again a brief period of maximal g
s
in the early morning, followed
by stomatal closure for much of the day. Stems of P. weberiana also
exhibited some stomatal conductance, though substantially less than the
leaves. Stem g
s
peaked just before dawn, indicating CAM-like patterns
of stomatal opening.
ranged from 11.45 m
2
kg
1
in P. portulacifolia to 24.8 m
2
kg
1
in Pereskia marcanoi, which fall in the middle to
higher end of values for tropical dry forest trees (Eamus
and Prior 2001) and are considerably higher than values
reported for fully succulent plants (Vendramini et al.
2002).
In addition to these traits, we monitored daily patterns
of stomatal conductance (g
s
) for the seven species, which
provided further evidence for conservative water use in
Pereskia (g. 5). Maximum g
s
recorded varied between 90
and 183 mmol m
2
s
1
and usually peaked in midmorning,
with stomata often closing for much of the afternoon. In
several species (P. guamacho, P. marcanoi, P. sacharosa),
stomata remained closed for entire days during their pri-
mary growing season, while co-occurring trees were tran-
spiring freely (data not shown). Pereskia stomatal behavior
is also remarkably sensitive to rainfall events, as witnessed
in P. marcanoi and P. diaz-romeroana (g. 5); this suggests
that these species have extensive, shallow root systems sim-
ilar to those of the leaess, stem-succulent cacti. A small
degree of stem stomatal conductance was recorded in Pe-
reskia weberiana, a member of the caulocactus clade char-
acterized by stem stomata and delayed bark formation.
Conductance values were so low in comparison to Pereskia
leaves, however, that it is highly unlikely that signicant
carbon assimilation occurs in the stem. This is conrmed
by the carbon isotope data; d
13
C values of leaf and stem
cortical tissues within an individual plant were identical
(data not shown), suggesting one site of carbon assimi-
lation.
These results support the Pereskia ecological water use
strategy hypothesized by Edwards and Diaz (2006) based
on P. guamacho. The combination of water relations traits
exhibited by Pereskia is unusual for woody, leafy plants.
In particular, comparative studies have recently found sig-
nicant coordination between plant hydraulic and pho-
tosynthetic capacity, such that a high K
L
supports a high
K
lamina
, high g
s
, and high photosynthetic rates (Brodribb
and Feild 2000; Brodribb et al. 2002, 2003; Meinzer 2003;
Sperry et al. 2003; Bucci et al. 2004; Santiago et al. 2004;
Sack and Tyree 2005). While we do not have direct mea-
sures of photosynthesis, SLA values suggest that maximum
net photosynthesis will be moderate in comparison with
786 The American Naturalist
other broad-leaved trees of tropical dry regions. Pereskia
plants are hydraulically well built, and they could con-
ceivably support high leaf transpiration rates, but stomatal
behavior is conservative, and SPI (our proxy for K
lamina
and
a good measure of g
max
) is low. In other words, the leaves
of Pereskia are generally oversupplied with water.
It is currently not clear why Pereskia species do not take
advantage of their high K
L
and keep stomata open a greater
proportion of the time; neither do we know why Pereskia
species apparently avoid the development of lower W
min
in their leaves. In a sense, however, the unusual leaf-stem
relationship in Pereskia bears a functional resemblance to
that of the inner and outer cortical tissue of the core cacti:
as a cactus stem dehydrates, the inner cortex behaves as
a water reservoir for the outer, photosynthetic cortical
layer, thus maintaining a steady and reliable water supply
to transpiring tissues (Barcikowski and Nobel 1984; Lerdau
et al. 1992). While the xylem in Pereskia is not explicitly
behaving as a capacitor, a high K
L
and low g
s
are ensuring
a steady and reliable water supply to transpiring leaves.
Climate of Extant Pereskia Species
Not all of the Pereskia specimens that we collated from
various sources had enough location information to ac-
curately determine latitude/longitude coordinates; we were
condent in using a total of 330 data points. Numbers of
locations for each species varied, ranging from in n p1
Pereskia quisqueyana and P. marcanoi (which are endan-
gered and currently known only from single populations)
to in Pereskia aculeata. Most climate variables are n p73
similar for extant Pereskia species; gure 4 shows the spe-
cies ranges of mean annual precipitation and mean annual
temperature. The environmental parameters of most spe-
cies correspond to the tropical dry and very dry forest life
zones of Holdridge (1967). The only exception to this is
Pereskia bleo, which lives in areas receiving considerably
higher annual rainfall. All species live in climates with
highly seasonal precipitation patterns, with the mean wet-
test month receiving 187 mm and the driest month 26
mm.
Ancestral Trait Reconstructions
Results from our reconstruction analyses are presented in
tables 2 and 3. Estimated values were surprisingly robust
to variations in both branch lengths and the model of
evolution used in reconstruction (range of values reported
in table 3; in table 2 we report only the mean value of all
analyses because of the small variation between them; re-
ported error estimates in table 3 are those associated with
running one analysis across all 500 trees with randomized
branch lengths). This is probably because of the relatively
small size of our trees and the similarity of tip values.
Node B was consistently estimated with slightly lower K
L
,
SPI, HV, and SLA and higher K
sp
and photosynthetic water
use efciency than node A (table 2). Node B habitat also
may have had lower mean annual precipitation with more
seasonal rainfall and cooler, more highly seasonal tem-
perature patterns (table 3).
When viewed within a broad ecological context, how-
ever, the differences in reconstructed values for nodes A
and B are relatively slight. In general, our results imply
that ancestral Pereskia inhabited tropical, semiarid to sub-
humid environments with discernible wet and dry sea-
sons and relatively low mean annual rainfall, but they
nevertheless maintained very high minimum water po-
tentials in their photosynthetic tissues. They accomplished
this in two ways: rst, by allocating large amounts of water-
conducting tissue (wood) per given amount of leaf area,
and second, by exhibiting low leaf laminar conductance
and extremely conservative stomatal behavior, opening
stomata only when soil moisture was plentiful (after rains)
or when transpirational demand was minimal (early morn-
ings, occasionally at night). Since most investigated Pe-
reskia have been shown to exhibit some degree of CAM
cycling, it is probably this ability that enables such con-
servative stomatal behavior. Recycling respired carbon
when stomata remain closed during the day allows the
plant to maintain basic metabolic processes without re-
lying heavily on carbon stores (Kluge and Ting 1978; Ting
1985; Cushman 2001). There is also some evidence of
inducible CAM photosynthesis, where stomata open at
night, in three of the seven Pereskia species examined in
this study (P. guamacho, P. diaz-romeroana, and P. sa-
charosa). The distribution of inducible traits is not straight-
forward to reconstruct, however, because of the possibility
of false negatives; just because the trait was not induced
in the course of a given study does not mean that the trait
is never induced. Since CAM cycling has been recorded
previously in seven of 11 investigated Pereskia species, and
here we present some evidence of inducible full CAM in
Pereskia species from both major Pereskia clades, we con-
clude that the CAM photosynthetic pathway was also pre-
sent in ancestral Pereskia and played a limited but poten-
tially important role in allowing for conservative stomatal
behavior and possibly in extending leaf life span.
Discussion
As our knowledge of phylogeny improves, taxa once
thought to be monophyletic are sometimes found to be
basal paraphyletic assemblages (see Donoghue 2005). Such
is the case for Pereskia in relation to the core cacti.
Discoveries of this sort provide us with opportunities to
dissect the sequence of evolutionary events through major
Table 3: Estimated values for nodes A and B of environmental parameters, using different models of phenotypic evolution
Model of evolution
Mean annual
precipitation (mm)
Precipitation of
wettest month
(mm)
Precipitation of
driest month
(mm)
Precipitation
seasonality index
(SD # 100)
Mean annual
temperature (C)
Temperature
seasonality index
Maximum
temperature of
warmest month
(C)
Minimum
temperature of
coldest month
(C)
Node A:
BM (a p .0) 1,256 .13 177 .05 27.8 .06 57.1 .09 25.6 .00 133 .12 32.9 .00 17.9 .00
O-U (a p .5) 1,258 .07 176 .03 28.6 .05 55.8 .07 25.7 .00 131 .09 32.9 .00 17.9 .00
O-U (a p 1.0) 1,256 .07 177 .03 27.3 .04 57.7 .06 25.7 .00 132 .08 32.9 .00 17.9 .00
O-U (a p 5.0) 1,253 .03 178 .03 25.5 .04 60.2 .06 25.7 .00 129 .09 32.9 .00 17.9 .00
O-U (a p 10.0) 1,252 .02 179 .04 24.8 .05 61.0 .06 25.7 .00 127 .07 32.9 .00 18.0 .00
Node B:
BM (a p .0) 1,102 .08 174 .04 19.9 .08 69.2 .05 21.8 .00 175 .07 30.6 .00 12.2 .00
O-U (a p .5) 1,100 .03 173 .02 18.0 .05 70.3 .03 21.8 .00 174 .04 30.6 .00 12.2 .00
O-U (a p 1.0) 1,100 .03 173 .02 19.7 .03 69.0 .03 21.8 .00 175 .05 30.6 .00 12.2 .00
O-U (a p 5.0) 1,099 .03 173 .01 20.4 .01 68.1 .01 21.9 .00 175 .04 30.6 .00 12.3 .00
O-U (a p 10.0) 1,098 .02 172 .00 20.2 .01 68.3 .01 21.9 .00 175 .03 30.5 .00 12.4 .00
Note: Values are presented as of analyses run over 500 trees with identical topologies but randomized branch lengths. motion; -Uhlenbeck; of mean SE BMpBrownian O-U pOrnstein a pstrength
restraining force.
788 The American Naturalist
Figure 6: Ecological water use traits of ancestral Pereskia nodes and core cacti.
evolutionary transitions and therefore to analyze how
changes in form and function were related to one another.
Our analysis illustrates this approach and also highlights
some of the difculties encountered when trying to infer
ancestral conditions with necessarily limited data and in
lineages that have undergone radical morphological shifts
during their evolution.
With our current knowledge of basal cactus phylogeny
and character distributions in Pereskia and core cacti, our
abilities to condently infer the ancestral conditions of
particular traits fall along a spectrum: some inferences are
straightforward, some are effectively impossible at this
stage, and others fall between these two extremes. For
instance, based on the paraphyly of Pereskia and the nested
position of Cactaceae within the Portulacaceae, we can
now infer with considerable condence that the rst cacti
were shrubs or small trees with photosynthetic leaves. At
the other end of the spectrum, the lack of functional leaves
in all extant Cactoideae and most Opuntioideae makes it
unlikely that we will ever assess with great accuracy any
particular physiological parameter of how those leaves
functioned. Values of K
L
, HV, and SLA, for example, will
be difcult to infer for the node subtending the core cacti
because there are no Cactoideae with functional leaves to
include in a broader sampling of these traits. Nevertheless,
we may consider ancestral values of these leaf-related traits
at Pereskia nodes A and B with regard to how they inu-
ence patterns of whole-plant water use, and we may com-
pare these organismal-level (rather than organ-level) traits
with what we know about the core cacti from the literature
(g. 6). Traits of this sort include habitat characteristics,
tolerated tissue water decits, stomatal behavior, and pho-
tosynthetic water use efciency. Addressing the problem
in this way, we are able to present a preliminary hypothesis
of the ecological niche and water relations of the rst cacti.
Resolution of major relationships within the Cactoideae
and Opuntioideae will provide a better basis for more
targeted trait sampling of core cacti taxa to include (with
additional physiological data from Maihuenia and Por-
tulacaceae outgroups) in further tests of this hypothesis.
The reconstructed ecology and water use strategies of
ancestral nodes A and B are remarkably similar to those
that typify leaess, stem-succulent cacti (g. 6), implying
that the cacti had been inhabiting their particular ecolog-
Origin of the Cactus Life-Form 789
ical niche long before they evolved the anatomical spe-
cializations that are often associated with their survival in
water-limiting environments. In other words, it may not
have been the evolution of leaessness and stemsucculence
in cacti that yielded the cactus ecological water use strategy;
instead, it seems that it was the origin of this strategy in
these ancestors that promoted the evolution of leaessness
and stem succulence.
We are not suggesting that there are no ecological or
physiological differences between Pereskia species and the
core cacti. Certainly, the core cacti are superior to their
leafy relatives both at storing water and in using it ef-
ciently. They also occupy a greater diversity of habitats,
with many species experiencing more extreme drought
than either extant Pereskia or their reconstructed ancestors.
Indeed, our work implies that the core cacti are so suc-
cessful in these environments precisely because of their
anatomical specializations. That is, the water use strategy
shared by Pereskia and the core cacti, which we are arguing
was also present in the rst Cactaceae, would be much
improved with a longer-lived photosynthetic tissue system
(provided by stem-based, rather than leaf-based, photo-
synthesis) and larger reservoirs of stored water (allowing
stomata to open for longer periods, in stronger drought
situations).
Our results are also consistent with the view that eco-
logical traits can be more highly conserved in evolution
than generally assumed (Webb et al. 2002; Wiens and Don-
oghue 2004). Studies of adaptive radiations focus our at-
tention on just how evolutionarily labile ecological traits
can be under some circumstance (e.g., in lineages that have
colonized relatively open islands). In contrast, some re-
cent analyses have drawn attention to cases in which in-
terspecic competition and ecological sorting have pre-
dominated over in situ evolutionary adaptation in the
assembly of ecological communities (Peterson et al. 1999;
Webb 2000; Ackerly 2004; Feild et al. 2004; Davis et al.
2005; but see Cavender-Bares et al. 2004). In the case of
Cactaceae, we argue that the cactus ecological niche, at
least with respect to water use, was occupied for some time
before the evolution of the morphological and anatomical
specializations that are often assumed to be responsible
for their water use strategy. This niche conservatism may
even predate the divergence of the cactus lineage from its
portulacaceous ancestors because most Portulacaceae in-
habit warm, water-limiting environments, are often suc-
culent, and exhibit varying degrees of CAM photosynthesis
(Martin and Zee 1983; Carolin 1987, 1993; Martin and
Harris 1993; Eggli and Ford-Werntz 2001; Guralnick and
Jackson 2001). When placed in this broader phylogenetic
context, the evolution of leaessness and stem succulence
does not seem quite so extraordinary.
A Preliminary Sketch of Early Cactus Evolution
In fact, we can now begin to piece together the order of
the early events that culminated in the evolution of the
cactus life-form (g. 7). We have argued that the rst cacti
lived in tropical, subhumid to semiarid environments and
exhibited the water use strategy described above. After the
rst split within Cactaceae, the caulocactus lineage may
have moved into drier and cooler climates with greater
seasonality of both precipitation and temperature. During
this time, the caulo cacti evolved delayed bark formation
and stem stomata, key traits in the early development of
the stem as a photosynthetic organ. Data from extant Pe-
reskia suggest that these traits are not by themselves suf-
cient for signicant stem photosynthesis (Gibson and
Nobel 1986; Nobel and Hartsock 1986; Martin and Wallace
2000); it appears that modications of the stem cortical
tissue were also necessary (for discussion, see Edwards et
al. 2005). Opuntioideae, Cactoideae, and Maihuenia all
exhibit signicantly greater water storage in leaf (leaves
are present in some Opuntioideae and in Maihuenia, a
specialized, leafy cushion plant of cold, arid Patagonia),
stem, and/or root tissues than any Pereskia species (Gibson
and Nobel 1986; Leuenberger 1997; Mauseth 1999), in-
dicating a shift toward increased succulence before the
divergence of the two major core cactus clades. It is within
the Cactoideae that stem succulence is most fully devel-
oped, and it is only in this lineage that the stem cortex
has evolved vascular bundles. It has been suggested (Mau-
seth and Sajeva 1992) that the vascularization of the cortex
may have been a key innovation associated with the
increased diversity and disparity of the Cactoideae, which
contains the vast majority of cactus species (1,250/1,600
species) and exhibits the greatest morphological diversity.
This remains to be tested, and the precise causal link be-
tween this feature and diversity/disparity is currently un-
clear to us. In any case, however, distributing vascular
tissue throughout the inner and outer cortex allows for a
more efcient connection between photosynthetic cells
(outer cortex) and water and photosynthate storage cells
(inner cortex, wood, and pith). This results in more rapid
translocation of both water and photosynthetic assimilates
throughout the cactus stem than could occur with cell-to-
cell diffusion, and it may relax possible transport con-
straints on the ultimate width, shape, and water storage
capacity of the cactus stem.
Reconstructing the evolution of perhaps the two most
characteristic features of the cactus life-formstem-based
photosynthesis and a functional loss of leavesis more
complicated. Given the apparent lack of stem-based pho-
tosynthesis in Maihuenia (Martin and Wallace 2000), it is
possible that this trait arose independently in Opuntioi-
deae and Cactoideae. It is more certain that the functional
790 The American Naturalist
Figure 7: Overview of events in early cactus evolution. The placements of traits listed in white boxes are more certain; the placements of traits in
gray boxes are more speculative. The gray line tracing several internal branches indicates that the traits in the gray box to the right could have
evolved anywhere along those branches. Multispecies lineages are represented by triangles that are scaled to roughly represent relative lineage diversity
(e.g., Cactoideae includes approximately 80% of all cactus species).
loss of leaves evolved independently in the two lineages,
as evidenced by a number of species of Opuntioideae that
produce functional leaves (along with photosynthetic
stems) and are presumed to represent early-branching
opuntioid lineages (Wallace and Dickie 2002). It is the
Opuntioideae, then, that may hold the key to understand-
ing the processes involved in completely transferring the
photosynthetic function from the leaves to the stem. How-
ever, we currently lack adequate phylogenetic resolution
of the major opuntioid lineages, and we know little about
Origin of the Cactus Life-Form 791
eld water relations of leafy opuntioid taxa such as Pe-
reskiopsis and Quiabentia. Just as combining phylogenetic
and physiological analyses of Pereskia has provided insights
into early cactus evolution, we expect that such studies
within the Opuntioideae will be especially helpful in un-
derstanding these nal steps in the evolution of the cac-
tus life-form.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Centro de Investigaciones en Ecologa
de Zonas A

ridas (Coro, Venezuela), the Jardin Botanico

Nacional (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic), the Her-
bario Nacional de Bolivia (HNB; La Paz, Bolivia) and the
Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado (Santa
Cruz, Bolivia) for their kind hospitality and logistical sup-
port. Friar Andres and Father Gee, S. Beck, M. Diaz, C.
M. Dunn, J. Edwards, E. Guzman and the Guzman family,
P. Lundholm, R. I. Meneses and Gisela of HNB, and Z.
Quintana all helped tremendously with data collection in
the eld. M. Lerdau deserves a special thank-you for his
generous long-term loan of a Li-Cor 1600 steady state
porometer. We are also grateful to N. Cellinese, C. W.
Dunn, N. M. Holbrook, and all members of the Donoghue
lab for various discussions that have signicantly inu-
enced this article. Two anonymous reviewers provided
comments that greatly improved our manuscript. This
work was funded in part by a Deland Award for Student
Research (Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University) and a
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow-
ship.
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Associate Editor: Susanne S. Renner
Editor: Jonathan B. Losos